Cite as: 506 U. S. 390 (1993)
O'Connor, J., concurring
on proffered newly discovered evidence and the entire record before the jury that convicted him, 'no rational trier of fact could [find] proof of guilt beyond reasonable doubt.' Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307, 314 (1979)"), with post, at 442 (dissenting opinion) ("I would hold that, to obtain relief on a claim of actual innocence, the petitioner must show that he probably is innocent"). Resolving the issue is neither necessary nor advisable in this case. The question is a sensitive and, to say the least, troubling one. It implicates not just the life of a single individual, but also the State's powerful and legitimate interest in punishing the guilty, and the nature of state-federal relations. Indeed, as the Court persuasively demonstrates, ante, at 398-417, throughout our history the federal courts have assumed that they should not and could not intervene to prevent an execution so long as the prisoner had been convicted after a constitutionally adequate trial. The prisoner's sole remedy was a pardon or clemency.
Nonetheless, the proper disposition of this case is neither difficult nor troubling. No matter what the Court might say about claims of actual innocence today, petitioner could not obtain relief. The record overwhelmingly demonstrates that petitioner deliberately shot and killed Officers Rucker and Carrisalez the night of September 29, 1981; petitioner's new evidence is bereft of credibility. Indeed, despite its stinging criticism of the Court's decision, not even the dissent expresses a belief that petitioner might possibly be actually innocent. Nor could it: The record makes it abundantly clear that petitioner is not somehow the future victim of "simple murder," post, at 446 (dissenting opinion), but instead himself the established perpetrator of two brutal and tragic ones.
Petitioner's first victim was Texas Department of Public Safety Officer David Rucker, whose body was found lying beside his patrol car. The body's condition indicated that a struggle had taken place and that Rucker had been shot in the head at rather close range. Petitioner's Social Security
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